ST. LOUIS — He had him in his sights, ready to deliver a heavy blow, ready to dole out some punishment near the goal line.

“I just wanted to trash the guy, you know?” Kerry Collins said.

Just when Collins had his big hit all lined up, safety Devin Bush made a move, cutting inside, brushing past Collins and bursting into the end zone.

“It’s a hard feeling to describe unless you’ve actually been there,” Collins sighed. “You’re just [ticked], you just want to take it out on him.”

There was Collins, moments after tossing the first of his two interceptions to be returned for touchdowns, trying to squeeze some shred of consolation into a play gone awry. He failed, as did the rest of his Giant teammates, who did little to suggest they were serious about securing an upset on the Rams’ home turf.

There is proof that the Giants yesterday spent just over three hours playing with more emotion than smarts. It’s all there on film, how the Giants fouled up nearly every opportunity they had to make a play, make something happen, how they became just another overmatched opponent for the Rams to steamroll.

Let the record show that the Giants fell 31-10 inside the rocking Trans World Dome in a game that was contentious and close for 2½ quarters before deteriorating into just another Ram rout.

It’s all on the record, yet the Giants want to rid their minds of the proceedings, as if they never existed. Their desperate playoff chase was wounded, but not critically so, and the Giants seemed to play and then react as if what happens in their final two games is what’s important and what happened yesterday can be dismissed.

That may be true, but they certainly didn’t look like a playoff-ready outfit with this showing.

“I told this team it’s over, it’s done, we got to learn from it. [Today] when we come in we’re not even going to look at the tape,” Giant coach Jim Fassel said after experiencing his first regular-season December loss after going 9-0 the past three years. “It’s on to [play] Minnesota. That’s the way it’s going to be.

“We’re still in it. This one hurts, but whether we won or lost, it’s still going to come down to the next couple of games. Right now, it’s got to be all Minnesota. We can’t be looking behind us.”

There was an unusual calm about the Giants after they dropped to 7-7 to put an end to their two-game winning streak, almost as if they indeed were ridding their minds of what took place. There weren’t many pleasant memories.

The Giants tried to fight their way out of their problems as they hung tough in a first half in which they trailed 10-0. But once the Rams (12-2) started clicking, the Giants started sinking.

The Rams piled on 21 consecutive points, not only intercepting Collins twice, but also getting a 45-yard touchdown return from Bush and a 22-yard TD return from linebacker Mike Jones.

In between, Kurt Warner and Az-Zahir Hakim combined on a 65-yard catch-and-run scoring play, as the Rams clinched the home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs.

“They were out there having fun, they’re playing football like it’s supposed to be played right now,” Percy Ellsworth said. “It’s our job to stop them from having fun.”

Not a chance. The Rams came in with the attitude the Giants needed. All week, all season, in fact, the Rams heard how they have not beaten anyone with a winning record, and yesterday morning, they were handed New York newspaper clips that suggested the Giants would be able to bully them around.

“We got them at 10 o’clock,” Jones said. “At 10:05 we were mad at them.”

And at high noon, central time, the Rams started making their point. There were skirmishes galore, finger-pointing, posturing and a second-quarter ejection when Ram right tackle Orlando Pace, from behind, decked the Giants’ George Williams.

It didn’t amount to much, as the Giants forgot that they needed to back up their bravado by making some winning plays.

“Everybody was out there a little high-strung — it was a lot of pressure out there, the more pressure you’re supposed to be under, the more controlled you’re supposed to be, and I think we lost our composure a few times,” Keith Hamilton said.

“We had to play smart and we had to play with composure,” added Fassel. “I thought we didn’t have either one of those. We got too much into the emotions of the game. We learned a lesson that way, because we didn’t play good enough.”

On defense, the Giants allowed 17 points and were able to at least contain the highest-scoring unit in the league, limiting Marshall Faulk (16-68) and slowing receiver Isaac Bruce (2-39). But they got little heat on Warner (18 of 32, 319 yards), couldn’t control Faulk as a receiver (6-97) and couldn’t get the Rams off the field often enough. On offense, the Giants were a faltering bunch.

It became 10-0 in the second quarter on a disputed touchdown, as the officials first ruled that Hakim was out of the end zone after hauling in a pass from Warner and then changed their minds, deciding that Conrad Hamilton had pushed Hakim out.

If there was a turning point, it came midway through the third quarter. The Giants were hanging around, trailing by only 10-3 when Jeremy Lincoln stripped Tory Holt for a fumble that Ellsworth recovered. The Giants took over on their 27-yard line, but three plays later, they were on the way to getting routed. Collins overthrew Ike Hilliard over the middle and Bush stepped in front and didn’t stop running until it was 17-3.

There was little the Giants could do on offense to retaliate, as Joe Montgomery (12-41) wasn’t much of a factor and Collins (21 of 37, 273 yards) was giving up more points (14) than he was producing (10).

“I think what we need to do is put this behind us,” Collins said. “The fact that this happened is over.”